


we exist in ink stains and acrylic paint

by alileely



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, F/M, Forgiveness, Mentions of Suicide, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28165995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alileely/pseuds/alileely
Summary: He was always there in the garden. But she could never bring herself to talk to him. Maybe there was just a certain romance to being out of reach. Maybe she was just a coward. But, as Calli is about to find out, it takes a tragedy to know one.
Relationships: Nakamoto Yuta/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 7





	we exist in ink stains and acrylic paint

"He's there again."

Bella took one uninterested yet obligatory glance out the window before going back to reading her book. "Yes, I can see that."

Her sarcastic tone irked her a little, but Calli ignored it. She had pointed this out to her yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that. She pointed him out to her every day that it's no wonder she's so tired of hearing it. But she couldn't help it.

"Why is he always alone?" she asked aloud, a bit mindlessly.

"How would I know, Calli?"

Calli gave her a stare. It took Bella about three seconds to notice, and she sighed as she turned to her.

"Look, I'm sorry, okay? It's just... I'm trying to finish Virginia Woolf and I really want to focus on it right now," she said. Glancing out the window, she asked her, "Why don't you go out and talk to him?"

"Uh... We're in class?" Calli answered her sarcastically, giving a shrug.

Bella looked around the classroom. Everyone was either reading or chatting away. "Um... Do you see a professor?"

Calli sighed and turned to look out of the window again. She heard Bella say, "Sir Luke won't be in today anyway. Maybe now's your chance to go and talk to him."

She pretended not to hear her. Bella was not the type to repeat her words. Even if her back was turned to her, Calli knew she'd gone back to reading the moment she'd spoken those words, and she was probably the farthest thing from her mind now.

Calli looked down at the open book placed on her desk. _Between The Tides_ by Patti Callahan Henry. Sir Luke told them they have to report on any book next week, so he'd given them free time today to finish reading their books. There were tons of books on her shelf that she could've chosen to report on, but for some reason, she found herself choosing this one. She _hated_ this book.

She tried to force herself to read, but her mind kept drifting away to the boy sitting under the shade of the tree in the garden beside the school. He was always there early in the morning, when classes were just about to start. And he always left an hour before lunch.

Calli found him a bit odd, but more than that, she was curious about him. She had never seen him on campus before, not until she started noticing him in the garden.

She could easily recall the first time she saw him. A bit bored by Sir Luke's lecture (after all, she was never interested that much on historical texts), Calli had glanced out of the window. The sky was darkening a bit - a clear sign of impending rain. She sighed to herself softly. She loved the rain — the sound of its pitter-pattering, the cool breeze, the dreary atmosphere. She felt oddly calm with rain, but everyone else seemed bothered by its sound and hassled by it. That was when she first saw him.

He was sitting under the tree, a large sketchbook on his lap. He was focused on drawing... whatever he was drawing. He had shoulder length brown hair, half of which was tied up in a ponytail.

Calli wondered why he still wasn't getting up to take shelter from the rain. A cackle of lightning pierced through the stillness, followed by a clap of thunder. Rain was coming. Even Hongjoong, who was also always there in the morning, packed up his music gear and headed inside. But she wasn't too curious about Hongjoong — he was a music student and she often saw him around campus with some of his friends. But this guy... Calli had no idea who he is.

That was saying a lot because the art university they were in has a selective and thus small population. To be honest, they were a bit elitist. They say only the best manage to get into the university.

Given that, everyone had a vague idea of every student on campus. Even if they did not know each other by name, faces are familiar and they even exchange smiles in passing. That's probably why she's curious about this guy, whom she has never seen. Classes are usually let out at 3:00 in the afternoon, and he's always long gone by then. So Calli never really had the chance to approach him. Not that she thought she would. She had severe social anxiety and the only people she really talked to were Bella and their friend in the arts department, Seulgi.

* * *

"You're not walking home today?"

"Nah, sorry," Bella apologized as she grabbed her bag. "Dad's insisting that we eat dinner together. I think he just wants me to play family with his new girlfriend."

Calli smiled gently. "You're really not going to give her a chance?"

Bella scoffed, flipping her hair a bit. Some people would call it ingratitude, disrespect, bratty. Calli knew it was pain and longing and _hurting_. "A chance? He started dating her while my mother was stuck in a hospital bed. And she was one of the nurses in the damn hospital! You finish the puzzle."

Calli sighed. She had a point. Even she would be furious at that. "Yeah, sorry. Well, I hope you're able to sit through dinner."

"I'm lucky if I don't even have to talk to her," she replied. "Oh, by the way, did you get Seulgi's message? She's staying after class for some tutoring. You okay going home alone? Do you have an umbrella?"

"No worries, Bella. Besides, the rain stopped quite some time ago."

"Still, what if it suddenly rains? Here, take mine," she said as she rummaged in her bag. Handing her umbrella to Calli, she glanced out the window. Calli saw the exact moment her eyes dimmed, devoid of warmth and emotions and anything, really. "My dad's here. Take care, okay?"

Calli nodded as she hurried out the door. She stifled a laugh. When Bella was hurrying, it only meant that she wanted something to get over with as soon as possible.

She silently made her way through quiet corridors and past dimly-lit classrooms. She and Bella had a habit of staying after everyone had left because they didn't like rushing. She also thinks Bella came up with the idea due to her social anxiety. But she never told her that she knew. She just went along with it.

The sky was still dim. As she walked on the gravel path towards the front gates, heel scraping every so often, something caught her eye.

From where she stood, she had a clear view of the garden beside the school. What she saw made her stop in her tracks while she stared in stunned silence. There he was, sitting under the same tree, drawing away on his sketchbook.

She couldn't move. Why was he there right after the rain? Wasn't the grass still damp? Why was he there after class? She wondered if she should approach him, talk to him, scream at him, anything. He felt like a movie that she was always watching in class, and the mere thought of talking to him felt like breaking the fourth wall. Something about him made her want to be closer to him, like a magnetic pull at her entire being, but at the same time, he felt taboo, out of bounds, _wrong_.

A striking fear gripped her chest as she contemplated. They say that anxiety is living in a constant state of emergency even without the presence of danger. It really feels that way.

Calli really wanted to talk to him. She really did. But her anxiety didn't allow her.

So, she walked home.

* * *

He was there again the next afternoon. It felt so shockingly new to be seeing him in the afternoon shade rather than in the gentle rays of early morning sunshine. In a way, the shadows casted by the warm afternoon sunlight suited him more, and he seemed much gentler, more serene than he had ever been.

"What are you looking at?" Seulgi asked from beside her, peering over her shoulder. She quickly responded, "Nothing. Did Bella text you?"

"No, but the last time we spoke, she said she wasn't feeling so good," Seulgi answered. The last time that either of them had spoken to Bella was three days ago. That was also the time she had dinner with her dad and stepmother. Something knotted in her stomach, but she dismissed it.

"I'm getting a bit worried," Calli said as she peripherally glanced at the man sitting in the shade, busily drawing.

But Seulgi did not notice. She didn't know about him. Calli guessed she never really got around to telling her. Seulgi said, "Me, too. But we'll try contacting her again tonight and if she doesn't respond, we can go visit her tomorrow. It's already the weekend, anyway."

Calli often admired Seulgi's decisiveness. She seemed so put together — a feat that she could never seem to achieve. She was a constant wreck, and she destroyed all her relationships with her anxiety and her tendency to withdraw into herself. Only Bella and Seulgi have ever tolerated her need to be alone, and she has always strived for their approval. She would never tell, but it seemed almost out of obligation rather than genuine friendship. She often wondered if she was capable of real feelings. It almost seems as though she was always doing stuff for the sake of others, to meet expectations, for their seal of approval. She felt like none of her emotions were hers, and that nothing she felt was honest and real.

Except maybe her curiosity for that guy. Perhaps she was so obsessed because it almost felt like this curiosity was hers and hers alone. No one dictated it to her. No one spurred this emotion in her. No one handed those emotions to her on a silver platter and asked her to wear them, to embody them, to become them. She had become curious all by herself.

There was an internal struggle whether she should explore this curiosity and talk to him, or just lock it away.

Today, Calli chose the latter as she and Seulgi walked out the front gates, losing sight of him.

* * *

Calli stared at the empty seat beside her. Tears threatened to fall from her eyes as she turned away and looked out the window only to be met by the sight of him.

At lunch, she walked out of the classroom with her bag and never came back.

* * *

Calli drew closer to him with small, heavy steps, dragging like an anchor in the sand. And with each step came anxiety and thoughts of turning back. This was a stupid idea. Her breathing got difficult, as though there was something wedged in her throat. But she forced herself to breathe, an arduous task, and take step after step after step.

Finally, she was standing beside him. It felt so surreal. He didn't even bother to look up from his sketchbook. She cleared her throat indiscreetly.

"Um... hi?" Calli tentatively said.

"Is that a question?"

His voice was cold and his tone was cutting, and it made her flinch. A wave of fear gripped Calli's chest, and her hand flew up to grasp the fabric of her shirt tightly.

"Hi," she said, trying to sound a bit more confident, although she failed miserably, her voice trembling a little.

"I heard you the first time," he said. Calli found herself wondering then, why people actually want to talk with each other and willingly make conversation. It was such a hassle.

"Um... May I sit here?" she asked, not really knowing what to say.

"I don't own the garden. You can sit anywhere you want," he said. He still had not taken his eyes off his sketchbook.

Calli sat down beside him, leaving enough personal space for the both of them. Sitting back and leaning against the tree trunk, she took a discreet glance at his sketch. "That's pretty," she said, her eyes wide in awe. At that, he finally stopped, lifting his head up to meet her gaze.

She was met with a pair of brown eyes, and she sort of froze. She often wondered why people had an obsession with blue eyes, black eyes, and green eyes. They write about blue eyes, saying they resembled the ocean, but she had always been scared of the deep. They say black eyes are like black holes that suck you into the void. She often wondered how they could ever want to be destroyed like that, for black holes consume everything that fall into its dark abyss. They describe green eyes giving off the gentle calm of a forest, but you never know what dangerous creatures hide within their tall trees, what monsters lurk in its shadows.

But his eyes had a stare like Medusa's, so powerful and deathly cold that it could freeze any living creature. And when the sunlight hit, Calli swore she was looking into an eclipse.

"Did you hear me?" she heard him say with his scathing voice.

"I'm sorry?"

He clicked his tongue, frowning. "I asked if I gave you permission to look at my sketchbook."

Calli could feel heat travelling up her neck to her cheeks. "I'm sorry, I just..."

"You know what, never mind," he said, turning back to his sketchbook. Calli felt like she blew her chance to talk to him, but she had never expected him to be so uncouth and rude. With the glass window separating them, she could almost swear that he was the most gentle-looking man she had ever seen.

"Um, may I ask you something?"

"You can try."

She couldn't tell if that was a threat or not, but she decided she was already in too deep to back out. So, she breathed in and said, "Um, I notice you here in the garden a lot. Are you a student here?"

"Of course I'm a student here," he answered matter-of-factly. "They don't let outsiders in, do they?"

"Do you... go to your classes?"

"Are you asking me if I'm a delinquent student?" he retorted. Calli clammed up.

She was obviously not going to get anywhere by talking to him, but her next class had already started and she did not want to go back in there.

So, she took out _Between The Tides_ and began to read in silence.

* * *

"You're here again."

"That's a painfully obvious observation."

"And to think you had the audacity to ask me if I'm a delinquent student."

Calli didn't respond. Instead, she focused on the unopened book in her lap. She stared at the cover, absentmindedly.

"The book's not going to tell you the story if you stare at it like that, idiot," he remarked. She sighed. She felt him stop what he was doing and set aside his pencil.

"Do you think there's a wrong or right interpretation of art?" Calli asked.

"Do you mean... paintings or books?"

"Art," she answered, not elaborating. He settled back, thinking deeply. It had been a few days since she had started hanging out in his spot. He actually warms up easily, she found out. He's just naturally snide and a little bit edgy, but he's actually a gentle presence.

"Personally, I don't think so," he said.

"Really?" she asked, turning to him. "Well, what if you use, for example, blue in your paintings and someone interprets it as sadness but you just really felt like using blue at the moment?"

"First of all, aren't all the elements we put into our art decisive and contributing to the bigger picture?"

"Yeah, but it can also be spurred by emotions. I don't put hidden meanings behind all the names of my characters. Sometimes, I just want to write an Ella."

"Alright, look at this," he said, bringing his sketchbook closer to her. "What do you think it is?"

 _Pause_. "It's a rose."

He gave her a look and squinted. "You can do better than that."

Calli sighed in defeat and shrugged. "I don't know, Yuta. It's a _red_ rose."

"Uh-huh. Then why aren't there any thorns?"

She frowned and took a second look. He didn't draw any thorns. Tilting her head, she said, "Huh. Why doesn't it?"

"Take a guess."

"Okay, off the top of my head? All I can think about is the cliché. There's no way to hold something that is truly beautiful, or so Adam Stanley says."

Yuta nodded. "But he who dares not grasp the thorns should never crave the rose, says Anne Bronte."

"Exactly."

"But your interpretation is different from my intention," he said, shocking her. He turned away to hide a smile. "But it doesn't matter because my art does not belong only to me. It belongs to all of the people who care to pay attention to it and derive meaning from it."

"But... You agreed with me?"

"That's because your interpretation is valid and makes as much sense as mine does," he answered.

"But what if your message is something important? What if they need to derive that specific meaning? Is there a right or wrong interpretation then?"

He shrugged. "Then it's my job to create art in such a way that they derive that certain message from it."

She glanced at his sketchbook. "Well, what's your meaning?"

"It's not a rose."

Calli couldn't tell if he was joking or not, so she decided to delay her reaction. He let out a chuckle at her confounded expression.

"It's you, Calli," he said. He had such a serious look on his face when he said that. Yet again, she could not, for the life of her, tell if he was joking or not. But her heart skipped a beat nevertheless.

"Basically, for the same reasoning you, and Bronte, and Stanley had," he joked a little, "but I didn't draw any thorns. Why? Because you don't have any, Calli."

Her breath held.

"You think you do. You often act like you do when you push people away and try to avoid others. You do it for the very same reason that roses have thorns: to protect themselves. But your thorns are imaginary, Calli. All you have is beauty. All I did is draw you as you are, without the thorns you pretend to have."

Calli turned away and looked down at her book. He turned the page and began an entirely different sketch.

If he heard the sobs that she desperately tried to hold down, he didn't show it.

* * *

"What's your favorite flower?"

"Camellia."

"Why didn't you draw me as a camellia, then? Am I not your favorite person?"

"Camellias don't have make-believe thorns, you demanding brat."

"Why did you draw me yesterday?"

"Why not?"

"Answer the question."

He shrugged. "Did you know that you were named after the highest of the nine muses in Greek mythology?"

"Calliope? Yeah, why?"

He shrugged again. And then, glanced at her with a lopsided smile as he said, "I don't know. It just made me think you're the perfect muse."

Calli pretended to read to hide the blush dusting her cheeks.

That is, until she heard him chuckle and say, "Oh, please, I know you're not really reading that right now."

That earned him a slap on the arm.

* * *

"Where do you live?"

"In a house."

"Do you have any friends?"

"I know someone named Calli, and she's definitely trying to be."

"Don't be mean. We are friends."

"Is that what you tell yourself?"

"Why do you never go to class?"

"Why do _you_ never go to class?"

"I asked you first."

"And I asked you second. Is this conversation going anywhere?"

Calli groaned in frustration. She had been trying to get information about him. But he kept throwing the questions back. "Will you tell me something about you? _Anything_?"

He seemed to think for a while. "I don't mind having you around."

She didn't find it in her to ask any more questions after that.

* * *

"You have poop hands."

Calli pouted and huffed, handing him back his pencil as she stared in frustration at her poor attempt at drawing a circle. It didn't even look like a circle, more like squiggly lines that just happened to meet at its end point. But she had brought this upon herself when she asked Yuta if he could write. The boy had, as usual, responded in boorish fashion, accusing her of thinking she was better than him and demanding that she draw him something, _anything_. Even a stupid circle. She just wanted to know if he wrote stuff and read what he wrote, if he was nice enough to let her _(he wasn't)_.

"Your hands keep shaking."

"Well, I don't know how to stop them."

Sighing at her helplessness, Yuta took her hand, gripping it tightly, and guided her in drawing a circle. Her heart began playing hopscotch. She didn't even notice how close they were until he had already drawn a full circle. Just then, she noticed he was looking directly at her. She pulled away, sitting back in her place, and shakily spoke, "W-Well, I could never do that without assistance..."

He paused, eyes locked on her, for a while before he shrugged. "Doesn't matter, anyway. You're better with words than images. I suck at words. I guess we're different."

"Painting and poetry are the same."

"Why do you say that?"

"Leonardo da Vinci. He said that painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen."

He didn't speak.

She smiled softly. "I guess we're not that different after all, huh?"

* * *

"Why are you so angry at that book?"

Sighing, Calli closed the said book and leaned back against the tree. "My mother gave it to me."

"Is that supposed to answer my question?"

She scoffed with a sarcastic smile on her face. "When I was a baby, she left it with me at the orphanage where I grew up."

He fell silent after that.

"It's weird because the book is about forgiveness," she said. "Giving and receiving it. Almost like she's apologizing. But I've never even met her. She never even bothered to try and find me. Why should I have to forgive someone I never met? Why do people think they deserve forgiveness without an apology?"

She knew. She knew that her resentment could be heard loud and clear, but he did not comment on it.

Instead, he went back to sketching.

* * *

"Do your parents know you've been skipping class?"

She didn't answer.

"Calli, please. I'm worried about you. Won't you even meet me?"

She couldn't answer.

"Won't you even come visit her?"

She hung up.

* * *

"What does your book say? About forgiveness."

Calli looked up. He was looking up at the sky. It was cloudy, and she wondered if he saw shapes in the clouds. She looked up, trying to find some for herself. She thought she saw an elephant. She shrugged and said, "I don't think I've gotten that far. Cappy is still struggling with the concept."

"Will you let me know when you find out?" he asked. His voice was unusually soft and gentle.

"Yeah, sure," she said, a bit confused.

"Do you have any friends, Calli?"

She paused. She felt a lump in my throat. Calli guessed she was silent for quite some time, long enough to worry him, because she felt his hand on her arm. The touch was startling because he'd never made any physical contact with her, and his fingertips felt like being submerged in icy water. So, instinctively, she jumped a little.

He chuckled after the initial shock. "I didn't know I was that scary."

"No, I... I'm sorry," she said.

"Don't worry about it," he said, settling back into a relaxed sitting position.

He didn't ask again, so she didn't speak.

* * *

Calli surged through the rain, her mother's voice echoing inside her head. She prayed that the sound of rain and thunder would drown it out, keep it at bay, keep it away from her, but she could still hear it loud and clear, like lightning cutting through all the noise.

_"Your professor called. You haven't been going to classes for more than a week now. What's wrong with you?"_

Her tears blended with the droplets of rain that fell onto her face, and she tried to wipe them away furiously.

_"What do you plan on doing with your life, Calli?! Why won't you answer me?!"_

A sob escaped as she arrived at the campus gates. She dashed inside, her feet carrying her desperately towards the one place she felt safe. But upon reaching the garden, her hopes were crushed.

Of course he wouldn't be there. It was raining and already late afternoon.

Calli sat on the wet grass, making her itch at every part where it grazed her skin, hugging her knees to her body, making herself seem as small as possible. The adrenaline had seeped out of her body, and she could feel the sharpness of the cold wind as it hit.

And she cried.

She cried like a newborn baby, tears tasting bitter on her tongue. Her nails dug into her arms, tattooing crescents in her pale skin, but she bit her tongue to withstand the pain. It felt like the rain and wind on her skin: frigid, and alone, and so, _so_ hollow. She felt anything but safe. She felt exposed and defenseless, and she wondered why she had wanted to come here in the first place. It wasn't the place that made her feel safe; she came here looking for someone, not just for the sake of being there.

Suddenly, she heard footsteps.

"Calli?"

* * *

Calli wrapped the towel around her shoulders as she sat shivering inside the faculty room. The door opened and Sir Luke entered with warm water. A little shyly, she accepted it and thanked him. Sitting across from her, Sir Luke waited until she had finished drinking, small sip after small sip in an attempt to prolong the inevitable, before he spoke. "It's the first time I've seen you in weeks. How are you doing?" he asked in that same good-natured tone, and the sound drifted to Calli's ears in fake sentiments and obligatory concern.

"I'm... I'm okay," Calli lied. She could tell that he knew, but she kept her head down. She would lie a thousand times before telling the truth.

"We were getting worried about you. Seulgi said you didn't want talk to her as well," he said. There was a concerned arch of his eyebrows, and Calli couldn't stand to look at him. She almost wanted to run out of there. She knew where this was going.

"I heard about Bella."

Calli winced, a restrained twitch in her face. She refused to look up from her lap and did not speak, wringing her hands together. They felt cold, colder than they had been just minutes ago, and she wasn't entirely sure that it was because of the fact that she was drenched in rainwater.

"Would you like to talk about it?"

_No, I don't._

"We can't help you if you don't tell us what's wrong, Calli."

_Maybe I don't deserve help._

"Do you feel guilty about what happened to her?"

"It's my fault."

The tears started streaming down her face again. Desperately, she tried to wipe them away, but they kept coming. "I should've been there for her," she cried. "I should've known. But I didn't."

"It's not your fault, Calli," he spoke in a gentle voice that only made her angrier. She shook her head at that.

"It's not your fault for not noticing," Sir Luke said, much more firmer now. "There are times when a person's struggles are so hidden from sight that it almost feels non-existent. Everyone hides things from people they care about, Calli. Some hide it better than others."

"I knew she was having problems at home," Calli said. "But I thought she could handle it. She never asked for help."

"I understand what you feel. But that doesn't make it your fault," he said.

"You don't know that."

"I know Bella wouldn't want you to blame yourself."

"Don't say that. You don't know that."

"Yes, I do," he answered. Sighing, he spoke in a heavy voice as if he carried a great sorrow, "A few years back, one of our students attempted suicide. He was hospitalized for a month. Like you, one of his closest friends blamed himself. That friend ended up committing suicide, and the student blamed himself every day for it. He had never blamed his friend, and he still doesn't. And I'm sure Bella would never want to see you like this either."

Upon hearing that, Calli cried more. She cried, and she cried, and then she cried, unrestrained and unapologetic. She felt, and the pain swallowed her whole. Sir Luke let her. Finally, when her body had run out of tears to shed and her sobs finally died down, she stood up. "Thank you, Sir. I'm sorry for the inconvenience."

"No problem at all, Calli. Don't hesitate to talk to me if you need to. It would be a such a shame to lose yet another bright student. Yuta was one of our finest."

* * *

"Hey, Calli."

"Hi," she said as she sat down on the empty chair beside Bella's hospital bed. There were unspoken secrets and silent sorrys in the soft smiles that they exchanged, and Calli wondered, as she stared at Bella's eyes holding hers, how she could have ever thought that she would blame her for what happened. She still felt guilty and responsible, and she felt like a shitty friend, but if she knew forgiveness, it was probably this — warm words unspoken, but filling her entirely all the same.

"I'm sorry it took so long for me to visit you here," Calli said in a soft voice. But Bella only shook her head, smiling.

"I'm sorry, I know I've hurt you."

"Don't apologize," Calli insisted, grasping her hand and clutching it tightly in hers. "I should be the one apologizing. I should have noticed. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm here, right? I'm just happy that you're okay."

"So, how's everything?"

"Better. My dad apologized to me. He called it quits with his girlfriend for now. I still don't know what's going to happen."

Calli nodded. She really hoped everything would go well for her starting now.

"When do you plan on going back to school?" she asked her. Bella smiled, albeit a bit sadly, and answered, "I'm stopping for a while. I need some time."

Calli nodded understandingly. "Well, Seulgi and I will be waiting for you."

"Speaking of school, though, have you finally talked to Hongjoong?"

Calli frowned, puzzled. "Hongjoong...?"

"Yeah, Hongjoong."

Unsure, and a funny feeling in her stomach, she asked, "Why would I talk to Hongjoong?"

"Oh, so you've overcome your little obsession, I see," she chuckled. But Calli was genuinely confused. Something was nagging at the back of her mind, an itchy thought that escaped her. She didn't know if she was subconsciously repressing it. She didn't know if the thought didn't want to be thought. But it built up an unease in her chest, settling in a pit in her stomach.

"Wait, what are you talking about?"

Bella looked at her in amusement, then confusion. "Weren't you curious as to why he was always in the garden in the mornings? Have you forgotten?"

Calli couldn't speak, not with the pit in her stomach turning into a whole abyss and her heart lodged in her throat, painfully, cutting off her breath from her lungs. She felt faint, and she wanted to. Maybe if she did, she would wake up and everything would be just a dream. Bella would be okay, sitting beside her in class, and she would glance out the window and see him, sitting in the same spot, namesake to a student that Sir Luke had once taught. But he wasn't just a namesake, and the truth snapped its jaws shut on her, trapping her.

Hongjoong had actually always been there whenever she saw Yuta. Always in the morning, too. Only he always sat by the benches, away from the tree where Yuta usually sat.

Bella had never seen Yuta.

* * *

Upon arriving home, Calli was greeted by the warm smell of her mother's cooking. She smiled a little upon seeing her bustling in the kitchen, wearing an apron.

"Are you hungry?" her mother asked.

"No, I think I'll skip dinner tonight," she said. She could see the concern forming on her face and assured her, "Everything's fine, Mom. I promise. I'm just tired."

"Okay. Just know you can talk to me whenever, yeah?"

Calli smiled and nodded. Her mother opened her arms wide and she obliged. She had spoken to her mother after talking to Sir Luke. Although her voice had trembled and her hands shook, she knew she had to tell her. About the pain, about the guilt. And surprisingly, she was very understanding about it. She had told her about how she felt guilty about what happened to Bella and also about her anxiety. Her mother had hugged her that night and cried. She still remembered her words, muffled by her sobs and sniffles: _"_ _You never told me you were going through so much pain."_

She smiled at the memory. After pulling away from the hug, Calli headed up to my room. Her phone rang inside her pocket, indicating a text. Upon opening it, she saw Seulgi's name.

_"Hope you're doing well. I miss you. See you at school tomorrow?"_

That made her smile. After shooting her back a text, Calli's eyes fell on the book laid out on her bed. Taking a deep breath, she opened it.

With a lighter chest, she read to the end.

* * *

Her steps were small as she approached him, as though she was deliberately delaying it. He was sitting in the same place, at the same tree, in the same shade. He looked so real, so present, so human. But somehow, everything felt so much different now, and the sight of him brought a pain to her chest.

He looked up briefly upon hearing her. "Hey. How was your weekend?"

"It was... interesting," Calli answered as she took her place beside him. She placed the book on her lap and sat for a while as she pondered. _How do I tell him...?_

"What have you been up to?" she tried.

"Drawing."

"Do you ever do anything besides draw? Like, go out to the movies? Hang out with your friends?"

He shrugged. She internally screamed.

"I do have friends," Calli blurted out. She heard his pencil stop moving in the midst of drawing a tree.

"Their names are Seulgi and Bella," she continued, determined to get through to the end, even if she could already feel herself choking on her own words. "I had always thought that I was incapable of genuine feelings for others. I'm always doing things to please other people, and my relationships always feel obligatory. Because they tolerate me, I feel like I should give back to them."

His voice dropped to a whisper, "Why?"

"I don't know," she laughed, bitter and ironic. "Maybe it's a result of being abandoned as a child. You never really find out what was wrong, and so you instinctively believe that you're the problem. So you try to please everyone in the hopes that they won't abandon you in the same way. Bella..." And for this, Calli had to take the deepest breath she had ever taken, feeling her lungs expand like a star before it bursts. "She tried to commit suicide. Her mother had died several months ago and she was upset that her father had started dating one of those nurses in the hospital where her mother was confined before her death. I knew. But I never thought to ask her if she was doing okay."

"Is that why you stopped going to class?"

Calli didn't answer, didn't even nod. "I thought that I didn't deserve to live since I'd never bothered to care about her."

She turned to look at him, could see the pain and confusion in his eyes. "But I didn't know that by doing so, I was only inflicting more pain on her and the people who care about me," she said to him. "My reaction also finally proved to me that I am actually capable of honest emotions and genuine feelings."

Yuta seemed frozen on the spot. So, she powered through the lump in her throat and said, "It's not your fault, Yuta."

He turned away, but she could see his eyes begin to water. He was silent for a long time, and Calli didn't speak. They sat there for what felt like forever, and oh, she he wished it were forever. She did not want to leave that place, did not want to live in a world where she couldn't be beside him.

"His name is Jungkook," he spoke after a really long while. "He was a music student, and also my childhood friend," he continued. "I knew that he was having trouble coping with his parents' separation. But I had always thought that if he wasn't asking for help, then he can obviously handle it, right?"

Scoffing at himself, he said, "Jungkook jumped from their apartment building."

His voice began to shake as he spoke, "I blamed myself. I thought I'd failed as a friend, and thought that warranted what I was about to do. So, I..."

Calli wanted to ask him how he died. But somehow, she couldn't bring herself to. So, instead, she held his hand tightly. "You asked me to tell you what my book said about forgiveness?"

He didn't speak, but he gripped her hand tighter, a silent _yes_. So, she said, "Most of the time, the person we owe forgiveness is our own selves."

In that moment, Calli understood that no one needed their forgiveness more than they did.

* * *

They didn't speak about it again. Instead, they spent the entire afternoon sitting, talking, bickering like they usually did. For a while, Calli forgot that she was essentially talking to a ghost. But as the sun started to set, dread gripped her chest tighter and harder than any fear she had ever felt. He looked ghostly like this, almost transparent in the soft orange of the setting sun, and she wished she could kiss him to life like a fairy tale. She wondered how his lips would feel on hers, if they would feel warm. But her hand brushed against his and slipped right through, and she swore she could feel the emptiness.

"I won't be here tomorrow," he said. She choked down a sob.

"Yeah, I know," she whispered quietly. She gulped down the lump in her throat as she said, "Thank you for being here all the other days."

"Thank you for being here with me."

As the sky got darker, she found herself begging for everything to stop.

Calli suddenly became aware that he was staring at her. Meeting his gaze, she forced a smile. But a tear escaped from her eye. Looking down, she tried to hide and wipe it away. But before she could, his thumb was on her cheek, wiping away any traces of her tear. She looked up at him. He smiled and said, "In one of my classes, our professor had shared with us a quote from Klosterman. Art and love are the same thing: it's the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you. Back then, I never really understood it. Now, I think I do."

His voice got more quieter with the darkening sky. He smiled, eyes glinting with unshed tears. "Take care of yourself, okay?"

Calli couldn't bring herself to speak as she tried hard not to sob, nodding.

Chuckling, he said, "Stop crying, you idiot. You're going to ruin the mood." His in-character remark made her laugh.

"It's going to be weird without you here," she said.

"You can always hang around with that other guy. He's usually here, too, right?"

"Hongjoong? No way. He's too nice. He wouldn't be able to make those snide comments you always make."

"So you're into guys who talk to you like shit?" he teased.

"Only if they're you."

Upon hearing that, a soft and gentle smile spread across his face. "I'll find you in another life."

Calli closed her eyes as he planted a kiss on her forehead. When the warmth of his lips was replaced by a cold breeze, her eyes fluttered open.

Only to be met by no Yuta and a single unfinished painting on the grass that prickled her skin as she bent down, knuckle-white fingers reaching out — two silhouettes, a girl and a boy, painted white under a cherry blossom tree in full bloom, and a starry night sky hanging over them, dreamlike and bittersweet and _alive_. So, so alive.

She held it close to her chest and cried.

* * *

He wasn't there again.

Calli didn't know why she expected to see him, but she did anyway. Every morning, before classes started, she would wait in the garden by his spot. _Their_ spot. Every afternoon, before going to the hospital to visit Bella, she would wait a few minutes. Sometimes, she would hear footsteps and her head would raise, only to find that it was Hongjoong either arriving or leaving the garden. Her heart would plummet to her stomach, and she would walk away with heavy steps, hoping that tomorrow would be different.

But nothing changed, except for the fact that on the last day, Hongjoong had approached. He had a kind smile, and his voice sounded like honey when he said, "Hey, is it okay if I sit with you? It's just that I always see you here and you're always alone, so I figured that you could use some company."

She smiled at him and nodded wordlessly. Because if she spoke, she knew she would say that he wasn't _him_.

Hongjoong sat beside her that day, sweet and adorable, as he showed her some of the compositions he made. He pulled out his earphones and offered to share, fingertips soft as they briefly touched her ear as he placed one earbud on her. He listened to good music, to Wallows and Dayglow, to Bon Iver and Michael Jackson, to Anson Seabra and Taylor Swift. His eyes sparkled when he told her about music and composition, and he liked drinking matcha tea while working on his pieces. But Yuta's voice was coarse, like a diamond with rough edges, and his fingertips were rough, but her skin prickled under their heat, so human and so alive.

That was the last time Calli had ever stepped foot in the garden.

* * *

It took Calli a couple months to gather her bearings before she finally found it in her to visit Yuta's grave. She still felt something hollow in her chest, and the pain was still as stark as the day she lost him. But she was out of her bed now, taking baths and writing poetry, taking care of herself like he wanted her to. At first, Sir Luke was a bit skeptical as to why she was asking for its location, but he eventually gave in. In one hand, she was holding a bouquet of camellias. In the other, she clutched his painting to her chest.

Her steps became more tentative as she approached his grave. There was a man in a wheelchair in front of it. She stopped a little bit behind him and asked, "Um... hi. Is this Yuta's grave?"

Glancing behind at her, the man smiled a little and said, "Yes. You know him?"

"Yeah, I'm... an old friend."

Stepping nearer, Calli placed the bouquet in front of his grave. The man smiled. "You must be close if you know that his favorite flower is camellia. Yuta rarely gives away anything about himself."

Nodding towards the painting, he asked, "You make that?"

Smiling softly, Calli shook her head and answered, "No, actually... Yuta made it for me."

He had such a kind and gentle smile on his face. His voice was warm as he said, "You must be special. He used to tell me the day he made a painting for a girl was the day he found out what love truly is. He never told me he did."

She froze, the words sinking like a boat in her chest, capsizing, swallowed by the waves of thoughts and memories that kept her up at night. "Are you... Are you, perhaps, Jungkook?"

Still smiling, he said, "Yes, I am."

"He cares about you," she bit her lip, unable to fight her tears. "Very much."

Jungkook seemed surprised, but there was no question or confusion when he finally smiled and remarked, "He's quite something, isn't he? Do you miss him?"

A faint sob escaped her. "Very much."

Calli saw a tear fall from his eyes despite the smile on his face. "Me, too."

And together, they cried. Calli knew that they were both hoping to meet Yuta again, in a different life, in a very distant future.

Until then, they would carry his memory in their hearts. Always.

**Author's Note:**

> [cc](https://curiouscat.me/alileely) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/alileely)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!!! I hope you enjoyed this long ass read. Kudos, comments, suggestions, and constructive criticisms are, as always, highly appreciated.
> 
> Sending u hugs ♡


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